Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment

(Belknap Press $35)
BY CHARLES TAYLOR

Talk of Western society in the 21st century, happens with reference to Charles Taylor and his massive 2007 book, A Secular Age. Less talked about in Christian circles, is Taylor’s 2016 book, The Language Animal. Building on that work is this new book, Cosmic Connections.

In The Language Animal, Taylor suggest that language is not a tool of expression, but a shaper of ideas — words don’t just let you say what you think, they determine what you think. The next step, is words about the divine.

This book is about Romantics’ and Modern’s use of poetry to recover what Taylor describes as the “disenchantment” of Classicism. Most of Cosmic Connections forms a survey of how several writers attempted to get beyond disenchantment, including Hölderlin, Keats, Shelley, and, Eliot.

No, this book isn’t summer reading. It’s 600 pages of philosophical and literary analysis. But for the ambitious and diligent, it offers one of this century’s most important thinkers tackling the interplay between our human capacities and our existence.
Releases May 21

I Cannot Control Everything Forever: A Memoir of Motherhood, Science, and Art

(St. Martin’s Press $28.49)
BY EMILY C. BLOOM

Motherhood already comes along this endless decisions and choices, this much I’ve observed. In Emily C. Bloom’s new memoir, I Cannot Control Everything Forever, she describes a landscape of motherhood that includes much more than decision about diaper fabric and preschool districts. Bloom finds in her own pregnancy and motherhood, a slew of technologies and scientific testings, all of which ostensibly make motherhood easier or smarter.

But as Bloom encounters them, technology and medical “data” add layers and layers — and burden — to child raising and caretaking. And when her daughter receives diagnosis of congenital deafness and type 1 diabetes, the inundation intensifies.

I Cannot Control Everything Forever is certainly a book about motherhood, and new and soon-to-be moms will undoubtedly form its initial audience. But it’s also about much more. To borrow from the great Vivian Gornick, the situation is Bloom’s journey into 21st-century motherhood, the story is about life in a world comprehensively covering each aspect of life in new and newer technologies and expert data.

Bloom’s solutions, if you can call them that, provide a way forward in this world: She finds a kind of solace in literature and art, particularly the work of Louise Bourgeois and Greek myths. Releases April 16

 

The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society

(W. W. Norton & Company $29.99)
BY JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

Take the financial collapse of 2008, the opioid epidemic, broad economic inequality, and look for a common denominator. What do you see? In the analysis of Joseph Stiglitz, you see the idea of laissez faire economics. In The Road to Freedom, the Nobel prize-winner, writes an evocative argument against America’s deep commitment to economic freedom. This new book looks at that story, recasts freedom without “free and unfettered” markets, and, at least in theory, proposes a path to get there.

In his run through recent economic history — which includes direct criticism of household names like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek — Stiglitz essentially tells the story of modern America. The latter parts of the story cause Stiglitz’s pessimism about popular definition of freedom. The freedom of Friedman and Hayek, he thinks, led the country into a series of crises, and now embolden industries like Big Tech and feed populist political movements. He thinks the American idea of freedom neglects citizens’ obligations to each another.

Stiglitz could probably spend more space in his book prescribing the road. Still, even the staunchest fee market proponents should grapple with The Road to Freedom’s implicit question: If America’s super free economic system is best, why are so many Americans doing worse? Releases April 23

Here’s the etcetera part

The podcasts, music, movies, and books that we’re recommending this spring.

[BOOK]
Sacred Work: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Leadership in the Marketplace
(Moody Publishers $16.99)
By Peggy Bodde

There exists a dichotomy with women and work. Women have steadily gained opportunities in the workforce, yet, according to the Peggy Bodde, these opportunities contribute to women’s feeling stretched thin at work and in all other arenas. This book aims to serve as a kind of pocket guide to what seems like an exhausting journey. Released April 2

[BOOK]
The Wise Leader
(Eerdmans $21.99)
By Uli Chi

For Uli Chi, to lead is to be human. And this book about leadership shows it, with an exegetical basis paired with an exploration of the humanities building toward working model of leadership. The chapters on power are worth the price of the book. Releases May 7

[PODCAST]
Mere Christians
With Jordan Raynor

The idea of the Mere Christians podcast is that Christians who aren’t pastors or official “spiritual leaders” have something to say about God and work and life that’s worth hearing. In each episode, author Jordan Raynor talks to a normal, if pretty influential person about where he or she sees God in the course of normal life. New episodes weekly.

[BOOK]
The Hope in Our Scars: Finding the Bride of Christ in the Underground of Disillusionment
(Zondervan $22.99)
By Aimee Byrd

We’ve got no shortage of books deconstructing the Christian faith. And we’ve got no shortage of books countering the deconstructionists’ bit. To her credit, Aimee Byrd, in The Hope in Our Scars, does neither. Instead she offers a constructive project, trying to map out a way to move forward from church hurt without ignoring problems or giving up. Releases May 7

[BOOK]
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
(Portfolio $30)
By Cal Newport

Cal Newport thinks knowledge workers are too burnt out, because they’re trying to do too much, too fast. As the book’s title implies, he wants us all to slow down — but not necessarily to do less. Instead, shift focus (“obsess,” he says) to quality over efficiency. He writes, “Slowing down isn’t about protesting work, it’s instead about  finding a better way of doing it.” Released March 5

[BOOK]
The Cemetery of Untold Stories: A Novel
(Algonquin Books $28)
By Julia ALvarez

This long-awaited new novel by an iconic writer lands just about how you’d expect — and that’s a good thing. In the cemetery of untold stories, incomplete manuscripts come to life. Released April 2